4/12/12

As much as I love doing guest posts about cookbook authors, bakers, chefs, etc.. I love it even more when some of my friends are the actual guest post. Recently thrilled to have my friend Jill from scarymommy do a guest post on her first book, and now I get another good friend Nick Evans of the famed "confidence in the kitchen" website Macheesmo.com, and also a newly famed cookbook author of the cookbook "Cornerstone Cooking"! A cookbook based on how you can bring new life into leftovers; using a theory on one cornerstone dish and recreating new recipes with its leftovers. Along with the cookbook he also developed cornerstone cooking website, with cooking forums, helpful tips, kitchen gadget reviews/info, and even discussions about new & old cookbooks (a really good idea).

Congrats to you Nick. I was wondering when your first book would appear.Nick was kind enough to answer a few questions AND donate a couple cookbooks for a giveaway. (see details at bottom of this post).Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions from me and a couple of your fans.

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I gotta be honest, I'm not a really good cook when it comes to using my leftovers. And I'm not very savvy at making sure I plan out easy meals that will last into leftovers. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat? Well, that is the whole premise of Nick's book Cornerstone Cooking. Planning better use of your meals BEFORE and after they're made; teaching you how to plan better meals and using them to your advantage. And we need to add in there: saving a lot of money too!

BIO:Nick has been writing about cooking for almost four years now. He has posted over 700 recipes on his blog, Macheesmo.com He lives in Colorado with his wife, Betsy, and their two pets, Tipsy and Porter.

Questions:

The use of leftovers in a cookbook. Excellent idea. I wish other food writers would do more of these types of meals. What made you come up with this? Did you get a lot of requests from your fans?

While I do get a lot of emails about how to use up extras and leftovers, the book was formed more out of frustration. I wanted a book that I could reference for ideas based on the leftovers that I regularly found in my fridge. That book didn’t exist so I wrote it. I figured I couldn’t be the only one who constantly had stuff like leftover bread, roasted chicken, and black beans in my fridge. Rather than start from scratch every night, why not use some of that stuff to make new meals?

I don’t think a lot of food writers have tackled the subject because, while it is practical and actually useful, it is somehow seen as not sexy.

I know you get asked a lot of questions, from your fans, regarding food tips and tricks. Share with us some of the most common questions and their answers?

Beyond the occasional marriage proposal (joking – kind of) I get asked a lot about freezing meals. Most meals will freeze okay as long as you wrap them well and store them in an airtight environment. Things I never freeze though are eggs, cream-based things, or anything that I fried.

I know you test your recipes. Were there any recipes that you tested a little bit more than others?

Oh yea… I make everything on my site (and in my book) at least once. I’m pretty good at testing these days and usually I can nail down a recipe in one or two takes.The recipe I’ve probably made and tested the most from Cornerstone Cooking is the Nick Nuggets recipe. I think the recipe in the book is about as good as homemade nuggets can get.

Your website macheesmo.com: macheesmo meaning confidence; is literally all about helping one become more confident in the kitchen. Was there a reason to go this route? Did you feel the need to personally become more confident in the kitchen?

Yea. I mean, the name is obviously a play on machismo meaning confidence almost to the point of arrogance and cheese which I love.The site started because I wanted to develop more confidence in my own cooking. I wanted to be able to feed my friends and family without stressing that something was going to go wrong.I always found some written recipes to be difficult to follow so I made an effort to take step-by-step photos of each meal so the cooking process is easy to follow and hopefully will give you the confidence to try it out.I think one of the biggest reasons why people don’t cook more is they are afraid it will go badly. So I try to help people realize that they can do it. I also make sure to post failures as well as successes just to show that nobody gets it right all the time.

They are very similar to the crunchy black bean tacos in Cornerstone Cooking. I use the method to make tacos very regularly and switch up the filling based on what is in my fridge.

Have you ever taught cooking?

Never officially. I frequently have groups of friends over though for theme-specific parties so people can learn basics. I’ve had a fry party, homemade pasta party, and even an eggs benedict party so people can learn how to do those things and also eat good food. I usually charge for such things in beer.

What was the first dish you ever cooked?

The first thing that I actually cooked on my own was a killer egg sandwich I came up with in high school that was basically two eggs and a metric ton of cheese between buttered toast. I perfected it. I ate it a few times a week and friends would even come over before school sometimes to have one. It was that good.

If you could invite three people to share a meal with you, who would they be and what would you cook?

I would cook homemade pizzas because it’s the thing I’m best at I think and I can do it with almost no thought so I could focus on the conversation.

Who? I would want fun, successful people so I could pick their brains. Off the top of my head: Anthony Bourdain, Brian Williams, and Michelle Obama. If Michelle isn’t available, Lady Gaga.

Any foods you just do not like?

Honestly, there isn’t much I don’t like. I’ve never tried it, but I don’t think I would like durian fruit. I literally can’t think of anything that I’ve tried and just wouldn’t try again.

Favorite pig out foods?

Anything Tex-Mex or ice cream. Give it to me.

There has to be some days when you just do not feel like cooking. What’s your favorite quick & easy go-to meal?

Oh of course. I get burned out in the kitchen for sure. The two things that I make a lot when I’m tired is a big salad with lots of veggies, homemade dressing, and some cheese and bread. I also make a lot of nachos which are easy.

If I’m really out of it, I have a pretty well-stocked freezer so I can usually make a meal out of stuff in the freezer also.

I gotta admit I’m just not a huge lentil fan. But after reading your chapter on “cornerstone lentils” and all the variety of dishes you can create with them—I was shocked in fact that you made lentil cookies!I can’t even think if a chef has ever made lentils in the mini samosas or the spicy lentil wraps look so good. Who knew? What made you choose lentil as a chapter?

I wanted to do a lentil chapter because it’s a food that I don’t think people understand. They are one of the most versatile foods and are very underrated in America.

Which chapter in your cookbook Cornerstone Cooking was the most fun creating?

Actually, the lentil chapter. It was really fun to brainstorm ideas for that chapter and test the recipes. The cookies took some tweaking, but they are great and it was really fun to work on them. To be fair, I’m not the first person to make cookies out of lentils though. Alton Brown has done it also.

I know when I create recipes I like to have ‘taste-testers’; it’s hard for me to just rely on my husband. Did you have any ‘taste-testers’?

Oh yea. There was a period when I was testing recipes for the book that I swear I almost invited people in off the street to try things.My wife is my first taste-tester and tried almost everything in the book, but I would also host dinner parties occasionally and have friends try out recipes. I’m also not above bringing recipes to a happy hour bar and having people try them out.

I noticed you have some sort of faux rival (cooking rival that is) with DAN from "Food In My Beard" are rivals. How did this come about?

Haha. It’s an old rivalry. We started our blogs at roughly the same time and started exchanging emails like, “I’m watching you, dude. Don’t mess with me.”

We’ve since become good friends and chat regularly. He also makes some of the most inventive stuff on the internet.

I see you graduated Yale with a degree in philosophy? And now you’re a cookbook author. Is there a connection I’m missing here? LOL

A vague one. One thing that philosophy taught me is how to take a complex thing and break it down into parts. That skill is pretty useful when it comes to explaining recipes.

A second cookbook in the works?

Always! My lips are sealed for now though.

And Nick has just recently created "Cornerstone Forums" where people can go and chat about the recipes in the book and just about anything else you need help with in the kitchen. (personally I love the 'no knead bread' discussion.

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To enter the giveaway, leave a comment telling us what food/leftovers you'd like to see in Nick's second book?Be creative.One entry per person.Please have a valid email address.Drawing done Friday April 20, 2012

And the winner of the Funky Chunks Soap Basket giveaway is: lucky #21! "Flavors by Four" who said "pina colada would be my scent".Please email me your mailing address and let's get that gift basket out to you!

My boyfriend and I started hosting Blind Beer Tasting parties at our place once a month, and for the first party I made way too much dips & spreads. Any ideas on how to breathe new life into "old" dips would be great!Lindsey, volumebyalcohol AT gmail DOT com

I think it would be super helpful to do a segment on leftovers from a slow cooker! There is always so much stuff made, and after a while it either goes to waste, or I have to freeze it because I'm sick of eating the same thing over and over.

I've been reading Macheesmo for a while now and love Nick's recipes. I cook with fresh herbs once in a while but I always manage to have several bunches of basil, tarragon, parsley, etc stuck in the back of the fridge, unused and forgotten. Suggestions for herby things would be awesome and versatile--just to have all those ideas in one place would be a help.

(bill DOT strom AT gmail) Great interview with a fun-to-read (and just plain fun) guy.

Would love to know what to do with leftover milk! I've switched to buying half-gallons to avoid spoiling it as often, but sometimes I can just tell it's only a day or so away from going sour. I'd love to use it up then and there!

I always seem to have leftover sauces, like adobo sauce, pesto, or tomato sauce. I usually tend to freeze the leftovers, but it would be nice to use it right away rather than freeze and forget about it. anna8g at yahoo dot com

I've already purchased the book and am loving it. I did a roast chicken and then made the chicken tortilla soup with it...and then last night I baked a whole 5 lb bag of potatoes. I plan on using the leftovers for potato skins and the gnocci recipe in the book. Great job, Nick! I've never dove into a cookbook so quickly!I think a great cornerstone item would be garbonzo beans. I love falafel and hummus but I'm sure there are many other ways to use them that I haven't thought of!

Wow..does everything look amazing, especially the pizza. I would love to see something on leftover grains. I love to make blends of things, but they tend to get dry sitting in the fridge for the day or two. Oh..and I love the idea of a metric ton of cheese!!

what food/leftovers you'd like to see in Nick's second book? = what to do with a dessert smorgasboard that takes over your freezer or cupboards, 3 old rice krispy bars, 2 cookies, 1 piece of pie, 3 cake pops, etc. You can tell I'm a dessert blogger :)

Leftover cooked cabbage. I just checked my refrigerator and it's the only thing gone bad. We had it twice with the original meal, but then the meat and potatoes were gone. It was first cooked with either lamb shoulder chops or corned beef. I just looked at the Table of Contents on Amazon and I would love to win this book. lfmelcher@gmail.com

This may sound silly, but I actually end up with a lot of herbs in my fridge that I then don't know what to do with...didn't need all of them for the recipe, and I don't know much about herb-ing up other foods, so they just sit and rot :-(

I'd really like advice on the vegetables that we get inundated with at certain times of year. how to deal with all those tomatoes, all that basil or zucchini. How to make this strategy work with a CSA basket. laura.g.toscano[at]gmail.com

There are quite a few things I'd like to see ideas for using up - but not necessarily left overs. I always end up with 1/2 a lemon, 2/3 of a bunch of celery, 1c. of stock.... the bits! Also, someone mentioned rice and I agree with that! Something beyond fried rice and rice pudding.

there's got to be something to do w/ left over salad.. either w/ or w/o dressing already on it.. ive seen soups that call for lettuces and such but im sure there are more fun things to do with it. what an awesome concept for a cookbook!

about vanilla sugar blog

Unique eats, creative recipes, as simple as possible.What drives me to create? Seeing dishes in restaurants, meals created on TV, recipes in cookbooks/online, and I always think to myself why didn’t they add this or why did they leave out that? Love to question, love to research, and love to learn about combining different flavors and textures in recipes.Recipe creations please email: vanillasugarblog@aol.com